Category: People analytics

According to Ginni Rometty, CEO of IBM, formal assessments and managers surveys being used today are not very accurate. She posits that by better understanding data patterns and adjacent skills, IBM AI is better able to zero in on an individual’s strengths.

She says that manager surveys or formal assessments are too subjective and believes managers can infer and be more accurate using data.

The problem with today’s assessments is they display the skills the employee has now but does not show whether these skills will be in high demand in the future. And more importantly if said skills fit into the company’s strategic plan for the future. Employees need a clearer career path and getting a true assessment of their strengths for the future is now critical.

She believes that HR departments need to move from being problem-based (dealing with poor performers) to solution- based- helping employees with updating their skillsets.

AI is now being used to understand the individual better than the HR person or manager could alone. AI finds the patterns in the data, so results are not based on hypothesis and suppositions.

Rometty says, “I expect AI will change 100 per cent of jobs in the next 10 years.” IBM’s HR has acquired a patent for its “predictive attrition program” which was developed with Waton. The program is unique in that it can predict which employees are high flight risk.

With a better understanding of an employee’s real strengths, the formal assessment, using AI technology, will play a major role in career planning and talent retention well into the future. Through data analysis, we get a better picture of employees from many facets of their work life.

Formal assessments using AI technology is another way leading companies are using predictive analytics to assist them with redesigning their workforce for the future.

Simply stated. People analytics is people related data (i.e. employee data) being used to inform and improve numerous types of HR, management, and business decisions. These decisions help those operating within the organization’s human system perform better. The kinds of data a particular organization focuses on depends on their industry and specific business issues.

Sophisticated companies now realize the need to pinpoint why people join their organization in the first place, those likely to succeed, and who will make the best leaders. They also need to know those likely to leave and when, as a part of their talent retention strategies.

Today, people analytics brings together HR and business data from different parts of the business to assist organizations with everything from selecting high-performing job applicants, analyzing engagement and culture, pinpointing what is needed to deliver high-quality customer service, identifying leadership development candidates, and high-value career paths, all the way to analyzing flight risk for the company’s top talent. All crucial data points given today’s competitive work environment.

Leader organizations are quietly but aggressively investing in analytics offerings, hiring people analytics staff, building people analytics teams to clean up their data, and developing people management models that is transforming their businesses.

Driven by competitive pressures, Deloitte’s research now confirm that fully 77 percent of all organizations believe people analytics is important, as multi-year workforce planning has move to the top of the agenda for executive teams around the world.

How about your organization? Are you seizing the opportunity to take people data (from interviews, productivity reports, performance reviews, sales reports, internal surveys, and a host of other data that you are already collecting) to make better management decisions?

Get a clue from tech companies like Google, Twitter, Facebook, Snapchat, Spreaker, LinkedIn and many others who use data in positive ways to inspire better employee performance.

Deloitte Global Human Capital Trends research revealed that a new war is quietly underway by the world’s most sophisticated companies. This war is to gain a competitive advantage in their markets by understanding all elements of their workforce. Their weapons of choice? People analytics.

Companies like Walmart, AOL, Pfizer, Facebook, IBM, Amazon, Oracle, ADP, SAB Miller, and other major players are miles ahead of others in implementing this powerful new technology. As we continue to see talent pools shrink in just about every occupation across the board, including law, medicine, education, oil and gas, housing, and even STEM, talent retention has moved to the forefront of C-suite concerns. One way these companies are using this technology is to understand how to retain their best talent.

People analytics can also analyze talent characteristic, improve the quality of new hires based on data, not guess work, boost employee engagement, and assist with understanding and predicting talent retention issues long before they become problematic, just to name a few.

However, many HR departments have been slow to embrace analytics because many suffer from either (1) poor data quality, (2) lack an understanding of what to measure, (3) lack an understanding of how analytics can help leaders drive numerous performance metrics, in fun and even exciting ways.

While experts believe that buying data driven software is an essential first step, they caution that it will take a while for smaller organizations to fully absorb and appreciate this incredible technology. How about your organization? Have you selected a point person to begin to learn and understand how people analytics can give you a competitive edge over your competition?

People management and talent retention are now CEO level issues, and data-driven predictive analytics are helping C-suite executives understand

(1) why top talent chooses to leave organizations,

(2) the ability to predict retention within weeks (with 95% accuracy) and

(3) strategic steps to prevent their top talent from departing.

Leader companies like AOL, Google, Pfizer, Facebook, SAB Miller, Walmart, IBM, Oracle, ADP, and others are using people analytics to build better leadership models and gain a competitive edge by understanding all elements of their workforce. This will be the new normal for HR. People management analytics are also being used to

(4) develop better hiring models (such as how many times to interview candidates for open positions, for

(5) studying which employees are most at risk of committing ethical transgressions, and much more.

A recent study revealed that 80% of HR professional score themselves low in their ability to use analytics. As people analytics takes hold, data-driven decision will become the norm across all parts of HR.